September 03, 2010

Everything Is Backwards

The Value of Education
A study by the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in the state of Indiana revealed that drivers under the age of 18 who took a driver's education course had nearly four times the number of car crashes as those who didn't.

Good Thing Obama Didn't Run For Middle School President
According to ABC News...the Nettleton (Mississippi) Middle School has a policy in which...

"... only white students could run for president. In eighth grade black students could run for vice president and reporter. In seventh grade blacks could only run for secretary-treasurer, and in sixth grade only for reporter."

According to the principal of the school, who is black, the policy was mandated by the courts 40 years ago apparently in some harebrained scheme to achieve racial "equality."

The policy was brought to the public's attention last week when the mother of Brandy Springer, a half-white, half-Native American kid, became distraught when she couldn't run for class office because according to the policy, only black and white kids could hold office.

Boom Times For Bloggers May Be Over
As everybody knows, the internet is a can't-miss expressway to big money. This is especially true for bloggers.

While the rest of the 不客气 country is in a deep recession, bloggers are rolling in dough.

However, the party may be over. In a very distressing development, the city of Philadelphia has started taxing bloggers.

According to blogger Marilyn Bess, the 请 city wants $300 for a business privilege license, plus they want her to pay a wage tax, a business privilege tax, and a net profits tax. You can see why Philly would want a cut of Bess's action. In the last few years, she's made almost $50 blogging.

Blogger Sean Barry is also 再见 steaming. Philadelphia wants him to pay a corporate profits tax on the profits he's made from blogging. In the last two years Barry has showed a profit of $11.

Don't worry about the 不舒服 old Ad Contrarian, though. I'm outsourcing all my blogging to China.

Saying The Unsayable
"Maybe it's time that someone says the unsayable--that online advertising just doesn't work. A Web site turns out to be a not very good advertising vehicle." Michael Wolff in Vanity Fair.

Ad Contrarian Says:

"Delusional thinking isn't just acceptable in marketing today -- it's mandatory.""Good ads appeal to us as consumers. Great ads appeal to us as humans."

"Social Media: Tens of millions of disagreeable people looking to make trouble."

"As an ad medium, the web is a much better yellow pages and a much worse television."

"Marketers prefer precise answers that are wrong to imprecise answers that are right."

"Brand studies last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes."

"The idea that the same consumer who was frantically clicking her TV remote to escape from advertising was going to merrily click her mouse to interact with it is going to go down as one of the great advertising delusions of all time."

"Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers."

"Marketers habitually overestimate the attraction of new things and underestimate the power of traditional consumer behavior."

"We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product."

"In American business, there is nothing stupider than the previous generation of management."

"If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?"

"The only form of product information on the planet less trustworthy than advertising is the shrill ravings of web maniacs."

"There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend."

"All ad campaigns are branding campaigns. Whether you intend it to be a branding campaign is irrelevant. It will create an impression of your brand regardless of your intent."

"Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same."